Protests erupted on Sunday in a Kansas City, Missouri, neighborhood after a white homeowner shot a Black teen twice after the teen mistakenly rang the man’s doorbell while trying to pick up his younger brothers.
Ralph Yarl, a 16-year-old high school junior, was attempting to pick up his brothers from a house on 115th Terrace in the city. When he rang the doorbell of a house on 115th Street by mistake, a white man answered the door and shot Yarl in the head.
As Yarl laid on the ground after being shot, the man, who has not been named by police, shot him for a second time in the arm. Though Yarl managed to escape, he went to three different houses in the neighborhood before someone helped him.
Yarl was released from the hospital on Monday, and is currently at home continuing his recovery process.
The homeowner was detained by police but released 24 hours later. Police have claimed they need “more information” before they can make an arrest.
The man who shot Yarl will likely defend himself using “Stand Your Ground” laws, which allow people to use lethal force if they claim they were defending themselves or their property, even in circumstances where they could have avoided violence by stepping away from a confrontation. Such laws essentially allow white people to murder Black and Brown people with impunity, and evidence suggests that Black and Brown people are rarely successful in citing such laws to defend themselves in court.
“If arrested and charged, the White male shooter will almost certainly deploy Missouri’s stand-your-ground law to claim (White) homeowners have a right to murder (Black) children who mistakenly ring their door bells,” Black historian Ibram X. Kendi wrote on Twitter. “Because racist violence is usually projected as self-defense.”
On Sunday, around 1,000 people gathered to protest on the street where the shooting took place. Many chanted phrases in support of Yarl, including “Stand up, fight back” and “Justice for Ralph.”
Yarl’s aunt, Dr. Faith Spoonmore, was among those who attended. “Ralph will feel the love because this is a lot of people, it’s amazing,” she said.
Ralph’s father, Paul Yarl, demanded that the legal system hold the man who shot his son accountable.
“We just want justice, Ralph is a good kid, he doesn’t deserve what is happening to him,” Paul Yarl said, adding:
Our message for the prosecutor: we want charges, that’s what we want. If he goes free, the next Black kid that rings that doorbell could get shot again. We don’t want that.
Kansas City council member Melissa Robinson also condemned the shooting. “No justice. No peace,” she said. “Now is the time for us to demonstrate that law and order applies to us all. We don’t feel safe walking to the gas station or ringing a doorbell.”
“It is situations like this that feed the ongoing distrust in law enforcement when Black people are the victims of excessive or deadly force at the hands of white citizens and law enforcement,” said Gwen Grant, president of the Urban League of Kansas City.
Civil rights attorneys Ben Crump and Lee Merritt are representing the Yarl family. Both expressed outrage that police have so far refused to arrest the man who shot Yarl.
“You can’t just shoot people without having justification when somebody comes knocking on your door — and knocking on your door is not justification,” Crump said. “This guy should be charged.”
“Ralph is fighting for his life. This man must be arrested,” Merritt said in a tweet.
The lawyers wrote in a joint statement that there is “no excuse for the release of this armed and dangerous suspect,” especially after the man “[admitted] to shooting an unarmed, non-threatening and defenseless teenager that rang his doorbell.”
Truthout Is Preparing to Meet Trump’s Agenda With Resistance at Every Turn
Dear Truthout Community,
If you feel rage, despondency, confusion and deep fear today, you are not alone. We’re feeling it too. We are heartsick. Facing down Trump’s fascist agenda, we are desperately worried about the most vulnerable people among us, including our loved ones and everyone in the Truthout community, and our minds are racing a million miles a minute to try to map out all that needs to be done.
We must give ourselves space to grieve and feel our fear, feel our rage, and keep in the forefront of our mind the stark truth that millions of real human lives are on the line. And simultaneously, we’ve got to get to work, take stock of our resources, and prepare to throw ourselves full force into the movement.
Journalism is a linchpin of that movement. Even as we are reeling, we’re summoning up all the energy we can to face down what’s coming, because we know that one of the sharpest weapons against fascism is publishing the truth.
There are many terrifying planks to the Trump agenda, and we plan to devote ourselves to reporting thoroughly on each one and, crucially, covering the movements resisting them. We also recognize that Trump is a dire threat to journalism itself, and that we must take this seriously from the outset.
After the election, the four of us sat down to have some hard but necessary conversations about Truthout under a Trump presidency. How would we defend our publication from an avalanche of far right lawsuits that seek to bankrupt us? How would we keep our reporters safe if they need to cover outbreaks of political violence, or if they are targeted by authorities? How will we urgently produce the practical analysis, tools and movement coverage that you need right now — breaking through our normal routines to meet a terrifying moment in ways that best serve you?
It will be a tough, scary four years to produce social justice-driven journalism. We need to deliver news, strategy, liberatory ideas, tools and movement-sparking solutions with a force that we never have had to before. And at the same time, we desperately need to protect our ability to do so.
We know this is such a painful moment and donations may understandably be the last thing on your mind. But we must ask for your support, which is needed in a new and urgent way.
We promise we will kick into an even higher gear to give you truthful news that cuts against the disinformation and vitriol and hate and violence. We promise to publish analyses that will serve the needs of the movements we all rely on to survive the next four years, and even build for the future. We promise to be responsive, to recognize you as members of our community with a vital stake and voice in this work.
Please dig deep if you can, but a donation of any amount will be a truly meaningful and tangible action in this cataclysmic historical moment.
We’re with you. Let’s do all we can to move forward together.
With love, rage, and solidarity,
Maya, Negin, Saima, and Ziggy